Malcolm Turnbull has unveiled a new election-focused ministerial line-up that seeks to draw a line under various scandals that have beset his government and give the new Nationals leadership team “retail politics” portfolios as platforms to maximise the Coalition vote in the bush.

Losers include Turnbull backer Mal Brough – who resigned as special minister of state because a police investigation into his involvement with former Peter Slipper staffer James Ashby was likely to remain unresolved through to the election campaign – and Nationals Luke Hartsuyker who has been dumped from the ministry.

Ciobo, currently serving as Julie Bishop’s junior minister with responsibility for international development and the Pacific, takes the trade portfolio vacated by retiring veteran minister Andrew Robb. Robb remains a special trade envoy until the election and Ciobo was, Turnbull said, recommended by Robb to be his successor.

Tudge, who has been an assistant minister, takes the human services portfolio that had been held by Stuart Robert who resigned last week over a private trip to China with a party donor.

New Nationals deputy leader Fiona Nash also enters cabinet, retaining the rural health responsibilities she held as a junior minister and adding regional development, which had been part of Truss’s job, as well as regional communications – a hot-button issue in the bush.

Two Queensland Nationals have been elevated to the junior ministry to appease concerns about the state’s representation with the departure of Queenslander Truss.

Angus Taylor, a first term New South Wales backbencher regarded as a rising star, becomes assistant minister to the prime minister responsible for Turnbull priority areas: cities and “digital transformation”. Senator James McGrath, a former party organiser close to Turnbull, and also a prime ministerial assistant minister, keeps that job and adds responsibilities as assistant minister to Peter Dutton, the minister for immigration.

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Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells is promoted to Ciobo’s old ministry of international development, with her old assistant minister’s job of multicultural affairs going to western Sydney MP Craig Laundy, who Turnbull described as a “formidable communicator”. Dan Tehan becomes minister for defence materiel and veterans’ services.

The promotion of right-wingers Taylor and Fierravanti-Wells should help the right-wingers in their factional preselection battles. But the reshuffle also rewards or promotes many Turnbull loyalists who missed out or got junior jobs in the first ministerial line-up last September.

The Nationals have increased their cabinet representation from three to four spots, but not at the expense of the Liberals. Turnbull has increased the total size of Cabinet from 21 to 22.

And the new line-up increases the number of women in cabinet from five out of 21 to six out of 22. There are 10 women in the full ministry.

Finance minister Mathias Cormann keeps Brough’s old job of special minister of state. He is about to unveil controversial changes to Senate voting rules which the government wants legislate by March, ahead of the election.

Turnbull was confronted with five ministerial vacancies just five months after announcing his first line-up – with the announcements by Robb and Truss that they would be leaving politics at the next election, the resignations of two ministers – Jamie Briggs and Stuart Robert over scandals (Briggs an incident with a diplomat in a Hong Kong bar and Robert a private trip with a donor that contravened ministerial guidelines), and the resignation of Brough on Saturday.

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Brough had left the ministry pending a police investigation into allegations that he had asked former Peter Slipper staffer James Ashby to obtain Slipper’s diary, said he was resigning because the Australian federal police had advised him their investigation could take several more months.

He said the nation deserved to have the ministries filled, and criticised the police for an investigation that had “taken so much longer than anyone could possibly imagine”.

Expectations are growing in Canberra that the government is preparing to call an election soon after the May budget.

Turnbull has said voters should expect an election in August, September or October, but also that an earlier double dissolution election was a “live option”. A July double dissolution election would have to be called almost immediately after the budget, with the latest possible date being 16 July. The first possible date for a normal House and half-Senate election is 6 August